Make Those Bracelets

Stage: 2 Challenge Level:

Here are two pictures of children and parents in Africa making bracelets. They have lots of colourful beads to choose from.

Let's think about making a bracelet using two different colours of beads.
The smallest bracelet will have two of each colour and the largest five of each colour.

The challenge

Find all the ways of arranging four and five beads on the bracelets, each time using just the two colours. Be careful not to have any arrangements the same!
Can you convince others that you have found them all?

Try this next for six, seven, eight, nine and ten beads.

Final Challenge

A new person joins your group and wants to make bracelets.
Can you put on paper for them some guidance so that they have a system to make sure that they find them all and know how to avoid repeats?

The NRICH Project aims to enrich the mathematical experiences of all learners. To support this aim, members of the
NRICH team work in a wide range of capacities, including providing professional development for teachers wishing to
embed rich mathematical tasks into everyday classroom practice. More information on many of our other activities
can be found here.